Musings From Public Citizens, Coast to Coast

Hillary Clinton

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) spoke and then posed for this photograph with the over 5,000 leaders, organizers, activists, and followers at the 2017 People’s Summit in Chicago.

You cannot build a movement for the common people if you hold the common people in contempt. — ThomasFrank at the 2017 People’s Summit

Chicago, IL — This past weekend Jered Weber and I attended the 2nd annual People’s Summit. The first one in 2016, was held shortly after Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), went from a little known and self-described democratic socialist to the brink of the Democratic Party nomination. Taking on Hillary Clinton (D-NY), former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State in the first Obama administration, who had nearly every endorsement from Democratic elected officials and party leaders, as well as the support of corporate America, Sanders received 46% of the primary vote.

Assembling a coalition of millennials who had previously helped put then-Senator Obama over the top in the 2008 presidential primary and general election, progressives, independents, and populists, Sanders shocked the country, especially the donor and billionaire class by proving that in the Age of CitizensUnited, there was another way forward. There was another way to run a viable national campaign without having to offer fealty to the Super PACS, corporate lobbyists, and special interests holding the country back in the 20th century.

And what was remarkable to so many who flocked to the campaign, new and old, of all different generations and backgrounds, was that it was the ideas and message that mattered. It was the positivity of the campaign and its focus on the issues, and it was the remarkable consistency and authenticity of the candidate throughout the years.

Sanders repeatedly explained that when the people come together in common effort, they win. It was never about him, it was about a “future to believe in.” And we now know it was never about him because the campaign never ended, because ultimately, it was more of a movement than a campaign to begin with.

And that is where the People’s Summit comes in.

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The People’s Summit is first and foremost, an Ideas Summit.

Not just ideas for the future of the country, but also ideas on how to fundamentally improve and outright save our democracy. Those critical of the People’s Summit only needed to give these ideas attention at the Center for American Progress and perhaps they would not have to get mad that not everyone is falling in line and “uniting.” Before moving on to an analogy for what to think about the People’s Summit, let me just say that no matter which route one prefers to moving this country forward, there is no need to come together on the issues, on party unity, or anything other than basic civility and decency because we still have three years to go. In other words–see you in 2020.

Bubbles need to be pierced, and introspection and national conversations must continue en masse.

Now onto how to think about the People’s Summit in terms of what it means for the future.

Each year movement conservatism (or what passes as that these days) has its annual ideas conference called the Conservative Political Action Conference, put on by the American Conservative Union. Think of it as a “State of the Movement” address to conservatives from all across the country. Upcoming elected officials and advocates often get heavily promoted and featured at the conference. In addition to think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and others, CPAC gathers all of the various grassroots conservative groups and organizations from around the country. Not being included almost serves as a statement that one is not “conservative” enough or not a “true conservative.”

CPAC operates very much like an ideas and state of the movement arm of the major American political party on the right–the Republican Party.

In 2003, recognizing the power think tanks, ideas conferences and so forth had in propelling the conservative movement to electoral victories through its political arm–the Republican Party, John Podesta founded the Center for American Progress, which is both a think tank and has an annual conference. There is no mystery that the annual CAP conference and its ideas are heavily attached to the Democratic Party. But while the Democratic Party was slow to jump on the think tank bandwagon and invest heavily in the think tank model in comparison to the GOP, its adoption of that model and investment in it represent the final shunning of its historical roots as the FDR “party of the people.” Consider this, CAP founder Podesta was national Chair of the Clinton campaign, Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton, and later counselor to President Barack Obama, made several versions of this sentiment throughout the 2016 election cycle:

For every working class voter we lose, we’ll pick up 2 or 3 professional class voters.

That’s the thing with the establishment or corporate Dems. I’m not much of an ideologue, I have a governing and leadership philosophy yes, but at the end of the day I have a healthy respect for facts. A respect that is lacking in so many political leaders and those who cover and follow our nation’s politics today. I’m fine with compromising. All democracies and constitutional systems require it. However, what incentive do people who do not like to compromise their belief systems have to follow a strategy that not only is not their views in key areas, but also does not and has not won? I submit these simple truths about where the party stands in terms of electoral strategy:

And I direct these six points of logic to the failed Podesta mentality from above and a similar mentality echoed by (permanent) Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), which stated that “for every working class vote we lose, we’ll pick up 2-3 moderate Republican voters.”

There are not enough professional class voters to form the consensus.

The ones who realigned from the GOP to the Democratic Party did so years ago.

The ones still in the GOP are rich and unpersuadable.

Working class voters are more numerous and more diverse than ever.

Some of them are even organized already, through this thing called collective bargaining.

You can’t build a party of the people if you have contempt for the people. You have to talk directly to the people about the issues, all the people.

Please note that when I say the working class I always mean that anyone who has to work for a living to keep existing. Many choose to work for a living and that is great, but their livelihood does not necessarily depend on it, and they likely have multiple streams of passive income.

Speaking of passive income, George Soros, a major funder of CAP and constant boogeyman that the right wing media likes to use to discredit policy agenda and goals, is not too different from the Koch brothers or any other member of the billionaire class engaged in electoral politics in the CitizensUnited age if one does not personally agree with George Soros. And that is the problem.

Neither party is seriously committed to taking on big, unaccountable, but organized money in politics.

If you are super-rich in America, or anyone really who can sit on their hands making millions in passive income revenue streams, and if your preferred party (whether Dems or GOP) does not win, you always have the other major party to protect your interests for the most part, with only a few exceptions.

It’s the same model. Controlled by the donor class, and dependent on the labor of others to keep itself in power both politically and economically.

I would argue the People’s Summit is an ideas conference, that allows for networking, learning, and updating on the “state of the movement”, similar to CPAC. As of now, it is without a political party attached to it, but I have no doubt, shall a viable third party arise in the next few years, it will be called the People’s Party and it will have started and spear-headed by the 5,000 or so people that have attended the Summit, and those that followed along online, etc.

The central organizing goal of the movement, like the Republican Party, the last third party to replace a major party before in the 1850’s with slavery, is the biggest moral issue of our time — economic inequality and the forces that continue to make it worse, organized big money in politics and legalized bribery and corruption.

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A Future Beyond Party Labels and Endless Partisan and Media Sensationalism. A Future that is not just Resistance, but Beyond Resistance.

In the weeks to come, this website will be recommitting itself to trying to churn out regular content the best we can. Apologies if we miss the mark on that front, as we all have busy lives in addition to written commentary, podcasting, etc.

This weekend the third season of the Agreeing Loudly podcast will be on just one topic and prompt: the Third Party option.

In addition, I’m hoping to finish up three articles in a “state of” series on the nation, the Democratic Party, and the Republican Party.

While we will never know for sure if “Bernie Would Have Won” — what we do know is that he is easily the most popular politician in America. And while there are loud voices among those 20% of self-identified Democrats that do not like him, especially in the media, corporate America, and on the Twitter-verse, the facts are that the “BernieBro” or lack of diversity myths do not hold up to scrutiny.

If this coalition translated to the electoral college, which I understand is a big leap of logic this far out, but bear with me here, if that DID happen, you would not just see a Sanders victory over the most unpopular presidential candidate of all time (candidate Trump) but you could possibly see the first genuine popular vote AND electoral college landslide since 1988 (and to a lesser extent 2008).

My Constructive Criticism of the Summit.

First of all, folks at the summit of all stripes were amazingly self-reflective of what could have gone better not just for the movement, but also for the 2016 Sanders campaign for President.

My two points for potential improvements to next years Summit.

Get a vets or foreign policy-focused speaker to talk about and call for a national “Peace and Security” movement. There are massive levels of economic implications to our #ForeverWar policy that tie into the larger issues presented by the movement. The social and economic costs in caring for our veterans and veterans issues have been some of the best policy work that Senator Sanders has done, so it only makes sense to feature this going forward.

Reach out to Republicans concerned with the direction of their party, big money in politics, and the growing, unsustainable levels of economic inequality. Perhaps this one will be more controversial, but if we’re truly to talk to everyone, we have to mean it. And we see evidence every day, not so much amongst Republican political leaders but we do see it amongst the rank and file and they are growing uncomfortable with the Trump-led GOP. The GOP is dominated by the interests of the donor and billionaire class even more so than the Democrats most years, and disillusioned Republicans becoming former Republicans would be a key feature of any future coalition, especially in current red to light-red states.

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The participants were divided on the question of a Third Party movement, but were engaged, passionate, and committed to the future no matter what — it’s an “All Hands on Deck” strategy for saving democracy for all and creating a 21st century economy that works for the many and not just the few.

Division is nothing new in this political age. Like the rest of the country, there was a split in views at the Summit. Progressives and populists committed to taking on the corporate state are divided on how best to achieve the desired results of taking on big money in politics and tackling the moral issue of our time–the highest levels of economic inequality in a century.

My unscientific observations of the sentiments is that the People’s Summit activists, organizers, leaders, and followers prefer starting a vital third party movement in this country. This is a sentiment I agree with more and more each day. However, for the time being, reforming the Democratic Party by taking it over seems to be the immediate goal and interest. A goal that has seen mixed results, winning some small battles early on, but losing the more high-profile battles like the DNC Chair election, California Democratic Party Chair election, etc. What is clear though is the ideas and message is winning over public opinion in America at-large. Significant portions of the speech last Saturday highlighted that.

And what is vitally true, is that we have now reached a 1955 William F. Buckley moment for progressives that this website had called for in 2015 and 2016 throughout the Presidential campaign as all of us ranted and raved about how badly the Democratic Party was going to bottom out in the coming years.

Progressives and populists have finally come to terms with the failure of the current model of the Democratic Party, and from this day forward–everyone knows that change will not come from the Democratic Party, change can only be brought to the Democratic Party. And the more and more party leadership grasps onto and protects their hold on power, even in the name of electoral viability (which is a ridiculous reason when you’ve lost nearly every election), the more and more power the movement, independent of any party control–will be. One way or another, the neoliberal and professional class consensus is over. And thank God for that.

I do not say these things lightly. After all, I am a member of the professional class in this country, but I also think that the younger cohorts of the professional class (Gen X and millennials, those under 45 or so) have far more in common (because of issues with student debt, broader acceptance of diversity, etc.) with the concerns of the working class (now more diverse than at any time in American history) than the concerns of the professional class consensus, whose obsession with incrementalism, education and innovation as a key to mitigating inequality (when in reality, it’s rationalizing it), and insistence that all problems can be solved from Harvard or Yale yard, Wall Street or Silicon Valley, New York City, Chicago, or Los Angeles, or by lawyers or financial service professionals, etc.

If the leadership of the party would rather go down on the Titanic, so long as they have a first class seat, then so be it. The overriding focus of the People’s Summit was not to re-litigate the 2016 election, but to movebeyond just merely resisting what the Trump administration is doing, because guess what? That only goes so far, both in practical day-to-day terms and in electoral terms.

Folks, the only way out of this is to win elections, and to win elections you need a party willing to adopt a better message. A message capable of capturing a large majority of the nation and turning out and inspiring more voters than at any other point in modern U.S. history, because there are significant obstacles in gerrymandering and voter suppression to overcome.

The ideas and message of the folks who attended the People’s Summit were not welcome at the CAP conference this year, so we took them to our own conference, in the same state where the last successful third party movement in America took off from, Illinois.

The Republican Party was founded as an abolitionist party to end the immoral practice of slavery in this country. Similarly, if neither major party takes seriously the issue of big money in politics and the fact that we are in a 2nd Gilded Age, then it is highly likely that the movement makes a clean break. But as of now, in practical terms, the prevailing consensus was that there is not enough time for 2018, and undecided about 2020.

One of the conference speakers Thomas Frank (writer, historian, and co-founder of theBaffler), put it best at the end of his most recent book “Listen, Liberal!” which was written almost as if he already knew the 2016 electoral result, even though it was published in the summer.

Direct solutions are off the table for the moment… Democrats have no interest in reforming themselves in a more egalitarian way. There is little the rest of us can do, given the current legal arrangements of this country, to a build a vital third-party movement or to revive organized labor, the one social movement that is committed by its nature to pushing back against the inequality trend.

What we can do is strip away the Democrats’ precious sense of their own moral probity–to make liberals live without the comforting knowledge that righteousness is always on their side. It is that sensibility, after all, that prevents so many good-hearted rank-and-file Democrats from understanding how starkly and how deliberately their political leaders contradict their values. Once that contradiction has been made manifest–once that smooth, seamless sense of liberal virtue has been cracked, anything becomes possible. The course of the party and the course of the country can both be changed, but only after we understand that the problem is us.

A lot happened this week, but I keep coming back to the Joker line in The Dark Knight, sometimes people just want to “watch the world burn.” Not much unites the country these days, but one thing nearly everyone under the age of 45 can agree on, the status quo has not been working for some time.

Beginning a new regular-to-semi-regular series on this website, an internet and news of the week round-up that will be graph-laden and told in a very ad-hoc manner. For the article and commentary news round-up, Pat Meacham has you covered.

Depending on your perspective, this week was either the beginning of Watergate Part II (dir. by Oliver Stone, I’m assuming….), or just another week of the “liberal conspiracy media” trying to ruin the Trump agenda. We’re not doing a very good job as a society of “piercing bubbles” so far, although I will continue nonetheless.

We just crossed the 100 days marker not too long ago, here is where Trump stands, and keep in mind this was before the Comey firing. Most importantly, look at the general trend of the erosion of trust and support for Presidents (in line with eroding support for other American institutions) over the years. Post-Watergate I, partisanship was high but then confidence was briefly restored before returning with a vengeance as soon as the boomer generation assumed complete control of all elected branches of government (Fmr. President Clinton and onward).Yes, President Trump is different than previous times of polarization and partisanship. He is the most polarizing President in the history of polling. This graph is from right after the inauguration. I don’t pay much attention to the particulars of the Russia investigations. I have no doubt in my mind Putin and Russia wanted Trump elected. Why? 7 straight quarters of negative GDP growth. Russia under Putin has not thrived at all, just the opposite. And if our nation emulates their system we will suffer the same fate (minus differences in natural resources, etc.) and even more stagnant growth (more on this later).

….while we’re on the subject of the future of U.S. public policy…

From the Willy Wonka Honest Trailer on YouTube–check it out if you have time. Hilarious and also this…More than 1/3 of U.S. adults are obese and 17.5% of children, couple this with the damning statistic of 20% of U.S. children being in poverty (obviously, through no fault of their own), compared to 4.8% for the Netherlands, there is a lot of room for improvement beyond meaningless and mostly symbolic statements like: “the children are our future.” The obesity crisis has gone under-reported in the U.S. media and has been but one of many reasons that there is no easy fix to the U.S. health care system.

Speaking of….

If you think the impact of the AHCA passing will surely deliver both houses of Congress to the Democratic Party, think again. You’re counting on a demographic who has voted reliably Republican or Democrat for some time. Ain’t this the truth….Please tell me again how the “children are our future?” And why did Hillary Clinton not run on ending child poverty? “It’s Time” to do X, Y, and Z would have been a far better appeal than “I’m With Her” or “Stronger Together”, but I digress. All of this assumes the elites of the Democratic Party knew what they were doing.Fox News has had cosmic justice enforced on them in abundance lately. Scandal after scandal, but they can still trot out their old reliable trademark of using accurate statistics to incredibly mislead people. Jeez… if only former President Obama had pressed the job creation button on January 21st…

While we’re on the subject of President Obama, the following undermine GOP arguments that he spent too much during his administration.

So it looks like it wasn’t wild spending, but rather something else that has caused the new normal of sluggish growth. It certainly isn’t sluggish for the wealthy and big corporations….ah, the “job creator” class, what an utter myth.

Consumers create jobs for the most part and workers create value. And until even the so-called “capitalists” of this country understand that, we’re going to suffer from stagnant growth because…. the masses are nearly out of money because…. see below.

The story since the late 70’s has been unequal growth, wages not rising with productivity and inflation, and its starting to catch up with us no matter who is in charge. Why? Because Tom Frank is right–there is no “party of the people” right now and hasn’t been for some time (circa late 70’s, notice a trend here?)

This has led to a distribution that looks like this….

Clearly, something will have to give here.

There are some that will keep banging the drums for the “magic”, but most working people pounding pavement and trying to take care of their families know the truth–the link between effort and reward is gone and has been for some time.

Want to know what’s behind the actual American carnage and why none of 45’s and the far-right to Alt-Right cabal’s policies will work? Because there is a fundamental disconnect between the world that elites inhabit, and organized money protects, and the actual reality of what is going on and has been the trend in American life for some time.

And this is why the most relevant historical force in the 2016 Presidential election was not Donald Trump–but rather it was Bernie Sanders.

He has proven that small dollar donations can break the donor class monopoly of our political system, or at the very least has proven you can put up one hell of a fight and maybe next (demographically speaking) things will break your way. If it is not broken up, it’ll be hard for much of anything to be made “great”again, although I’d very much settle for “good” outcomes at this point.

Indeed, Mr. Norris was right. We are cursed to live (or fortunate to live?) in interesting times. Anyone who has been following developments between the Alt-Right and far-left clashing on college campuses lately, or developments like this can conclude that we are cursed to live in interesting times.

So I keep coming back to the Joker and “watching the world burn.”

There are those who have settled into the world as it is and those (overwhelmingly under 45) who are dreaming of the world as it should be. I think the common thread that binds a lot of millennials, most Gen-X’ers, and younger folks together will be our desire to “burn it down.”

The key difference will be what type of burn. At the outset I showed a “controlled burn” that farmers utilize to help the soil and rotate crops. I believe the controlled burn is far preferable to what the Alt-Right is and wants, which I will call the “moral hazard burn.”

That’s all for now, folks.

Take care of each out there. And stay tuned for AgreeingLoudly and the Margin of Error.

New York, NY — The other night before going to bed I watched the Netflix original “Barry.” The film was a slice-of-life moment during Barack Obama’s years at Columbia undergrad in New York City.

Last night, I was barnstorming NYC going from protests to anti-inauguration networking events and fundraisers and meeting many people I have never met before. Like so many conversations with friends and complete strangers since November 8th, my faith in the basic decency of the American people was reinforced yet again. I don’t blame soon-to-be (and likely is as you read this) former President Barack Obama for believing in that same basic decency.

Six weeks ago, I had a dream I was a White House aide, serving at the pleasure of the President. It was the series finale of “West Wing: Obama Edition.” I was summoned into the Oval Office, not unlike Charlie Young often was for Jed Bartlet: “what would you have done differently, Troy?”

“Permission to speak freely Mr. President?”

“Granted”, replied the President, on his last night of service after eight years in office.

“Well Mr. President, I would have….pursued something big and grand first, but it would not have been health care reform. At least not if it is going to be the Heritage Foundation’s plan from the early-90s. I would have pursued a carbon tax, put a down payment on a 21st century green economy infrastructure, bailed out homeowners and people instead of big banks, and then given everything that I had to get the world to succeed at Copenhagen in ’09, the “true last best hope” to stem the tide and roll back the worst effects of climate change the world had. Out of those successes I would have then taken the political capital to try and pass single payer healthcare before the 2010 midterms.”

Perhaps we’ll all learn just like Barack that these things are just out of our grasp. Not possible within this political system. But I still have to believe, and hope.

What I will always remember about the Obama years is something I can be reminded of every day in the friends and company that I keep. I think Time magazine summed it up years ago best…

The Obama victory was not so much about his generation — but the kids two generations behind him, the college kids and recent graduates, blissfully color-blind, who spent patient months as organizers out in the most rural counties… They reminded me, in classic, solipsistic boomer fashion, of my own generation of the remarkable political activists who went down to Mississippi to register black voters and marched against another war, and came to politics in the Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy campaigns of 1968. That generation’s — my generation’s — passion gave us the propulsion to quickly move to the center of political life and the media. The end of their time — our time — in the driver’s seat may have begun in Iowa.

Whether or not Barack Obama goes on to win the nomination — and let’s not forget in the afterglow that this is truly an open question — his field army will endure and, because of their immense skill, they will bend the political process to their will in years to come. And years from now, when they meet in the corridors of power or academia or at the inevitable reunions, they’ll look at each other and smile, and they won’t even have to say the words: We did something amazing back in Iowa, on January 3, 2008, didn’t we?

– Joe Klein, Time Magazine

And this is the central Obama legacy. His policy legacy will very much be in doubt going forward — but the number of talented and inspiring young people that were brought into politics at a time when cynicism was high is what I truly believe will be the lasting legacy of the Obama years. I met so many great people helping get Barack Obama elected President and so many friendships were forged and strengthened.

Allan Branstiter.

Pat Meacham.

Jered Weber.

Justin Norris.

Carson Starkey.

The list could go on, but I wanted to highlight these five friends and colleagues.

Allan Branstiter and I met in Fargo at an Obama event. He is an Iraq War vet, and in 2007 I revered Iraq War vets (I still do). I had always opposed the war but looked up to each and every veteran I knew. Allan made an immediate impact on me. On some level I must have made an impression on him because he asked me to help him out on his state senate campaign in North Dakota. He was nominated by the Dem-NPL. He said, “you have more connections than I do and I’ll need all the help I can get.” What Allan did not know at the time was that I probably barely had any more connections than he did.

Pat Meacham I have known for years but as you’ll see from the photo below — we spent some time in Iowa together in 2007 and 2010 campaigning and those photos below with then-Senator Obama and Michelle are hanging up at the Lakeside Tavern in Detroit Lakes, MN if you ever are strolling through that part of the country. It’s a wonderful place where I worked as a summer job during college. A lot of my work ethic was built at that place working double shifts with Pat, cooking and talking…dreaming about a better future.

Jered Weber was the only person who agreed to come down to Iowa with me in late ’07/’08 for the caucus because I had an almost fanatical belief that if Senator Obama won Iowa — he would become President. Jered and I struck up an immediate friendship over the campaign, our love of Star Wars, and being raised in small town America.

Justin Norris liked two candidates in the 2008 Democratic field a lot. Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Justin was the first politically involved person I met at Minnesota State and his encyclopedia-esque knowledge about U.S. History and Politics made me remark upon firs meeting him: “jeez, you’re a genius!” His response I will never forget — “nope, I’m just well read.”

I never knew Carson Starkey until my own Army deployment. He was finishing up undergrad while I was overseas. I saw him as basically doing “my story in reverse” and felt compelled to reach out to this humorist that was so dedicated to satire and sarcasm that he made Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert seem tame. If anyone is ever strolling through St. Paul, MN I highly recommend getting to know the Earl of Payne-Phalen.

What is the common thread that brought us together? Or the ties that bind? The Obama campaign and Presidency.

Four times I met the to-be President. Four times. Not gloating. But it happened. It turns out that in the end, I’m not much into hero worship. Barack Obama is no hero to me, and I’m no hero to anyone. The only heroes I’ve ever contemplated are the service members of the United States Armed Forces who gave the “last full measure of devotion.” Something tells me that even they would disagree that they are heroes.

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In addition to all the amazing and inspiring future leaders and public citizens I’ve met throughout the Obama years, I will also remember the words.

“Dreams from My Father” and “The Audacity of Hope” are how I will partly remember the Obama years and my role as an American citizen in them.

“Dreams from My Father” is ironically titled you could say, and is a journey a young Barack “Barry” Obama was on that was shaped more by the absence of a Father than anything else. The Obama campaign, like a few things before it, and many things since, gave me a purpose and family away from my own wonderful, but dysfunctional and imperfect family. It brought me back from youthful alienation and into the community of people. Got me away from thinking about just myself. I gave up my pursuit of happiness, because even Thomas Jefferson is not right about everything, and I embarked on a pursuit of joy, which is a far more fulfilling pursuit.

“The Audacity of Hope” was a remarkable journey as well. Where I met amazing people and experienced a Presidential campaign that brought me to three different states, thousands of conversations with people I otherwise would not have met, got me addicted to the “politics of joy”, and impacted my life in ways I’m still pulling together. In the end, Barack was right. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” all along. Not in an egotistical way, but in a democratic way. In the only way a democracy and a civil society can be made more perfect, or truly whole again. With a little help from your friends, asking a little bit more out of yourself, and walking amongst others in a spirit of solidarity, embarking on life’s journey, side by side.

Goodbye Barry, and Thank You for serving and inspiring us all to be better citizens.

Generational change, or the lack thereof, proved to be a chief driving force of the “bottoming out” of the Democratic Party this year. This is not news to “Agreeing Loudly.” We’ve predicted this and built a site partly on this fact for 16 months. The early returns are not good — Democratic Party leadership is not reading enough Thomas Frank.

New York, NY — (the capital of national Democratic Party incompetence, cluelessness, and cultural excess).

The beating heart of America and the state of New York (like every state) is the people. And the people have been betrayed. While the GOP celebrates, and all Americans should be protective of those most vulnerable and commit themselves to being the best person they can be, it is time for the Democratic Party to take these next six weeks and actually do some introspection. I have no doubt that introspection is going on in the hearts and minds of voters and supporters. However, it is rarely going on in the minds of boomer-heavy Democratic Party leaders. And that will not change until we demand that it changes.

Permanent Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is not going to suddenly discover his populist voice at the age of 65. Permanent Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is not going to suddenly discover her populist voice at the age of 76. I do not bring up their ages to be an agist. Far from it. Because the war on the young and the war on the middle and working class has been going on ever since their generation came to power via Watergate in the mid-70s. I bring up, what in the end are mere numbers to highlight the concept of subsidiarity: let those that are closest to the problem, and are more likely to know the problem — solve the problem.

The problem with the party is neoliberalism and corporatism. The problem is empty and soulless “high society” and “status” liberalism. The problem is an irrational appeal to moderation, compromise, incrementalism, and the idea that leaders (and especially the President) can just solve anything. They can’t and they won’t. We must do it. We the people. Welcome to the third and final part of the story of the future Greater Recession: Party’s End and a New Beginning.

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In 18 to 36 months, because it is a fact of the business cycle, and for reasons cited in Parts One and Two, this country will be in another “bubble” recession. The recession is inevitable. The pain caused to human beings because of short-sightenedness, corporate greed and grift, and government sponsorship of it, is completely avoidable. Were it not for the fact that elections, a lack of vision for the future and a good message, and voter apathy having consequences.

It would have happened if Hillary Clinton had won too. Don’t forget that formerincoming Majority Leader Schumer had a stated top legislative goal of corporate tax cuts to get after overseas tax shelter-corporate profit dollars in the coming session. Now that Donald Trump has won, it will still happen. In some ways it’ll be the same, in others worse. The difference now is how the powers that be will react to it, and how we the people will react to it. Life is ten percent what happens to you, ninety percent how you react to what happens to you.

The big financial institutions and investment banks are already lining up and betting for the market to fail. Hiring freezes have commenced. All the indicators are there.

Despite all of his populist rhetoric, and many commentators citing that it was a farce and fraudulent in advance, the incoming Trump administration has already tapped a Goldman Sachs banker as the next Treasury Secretary. It might as well be enshrined into the Constitution at this point. Doesn’t matter who wins–there’s going to be a GS Treasury Secretary.

Bizarrely, this Greater Recession will not feel greater than the great one. Why? Because working families and working people have not made up what was lost economically for them in 2007-09. My ancestors barely felt the Great Depression in the 1930s–why? Because they were already poor to begin with. If/when the market fails and there are more bail outs of banks, but not people–get ready for the student loan “bubble” to burst too. Mr. Pres.-elect, it’s up to you what you want to do–I recommend doing the right thing.

For anyone who thinks the intra-party civil war within the Democratic Party can save us all from this fate, or if you think there will be an inevitable electoral backlash, think again. And then read Thomas Frank. Then get back to me. Then go read Thomas Frank again. Then listen to the “Margin of Error”, then branch out from there.

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After the 2016 Election — the two party power structure in this country looks like this:

Presidency: GOP (the first elected President in American history without any political or military experience prior to the Presidency)

The GOP faces a very favorable Senate map in 2018. 2016 was actually the last time in a long time the Democrats had a realistic chance to pick up the Senate absent a wave and a complete re-organization of the Democratic Party. Now we have the following seats that will still likely fall, or very well could.

The situation will not improve much in the US House in an era of gerrymandering, voter ID, and key provisions of the Voting Rights Act gone.

Therefore, the next two years should be a legal battle in key states and 2017 should be about actually voting in progressive major US city Mayors so we can stop looking so hypocritical when corporate Democratic Mayors engage in tax giveaways to subsidize sports stadiums, and real estate projects, etc. We can stop looking so hypocritical when it comes to education achievement gaps, etc.

Lessons have not been learned and the liberal boomer establishment is mostly not getting it.

The Democratic Party will still have a DCCC that dictates to local units their “expert” opinions and sophisticated numbers over the local knowledge of people who have lived most, if not all, of their lives in their communities.

Most of the chairs and public elected officials of the Democratic Party remain unchanged. And already the Keith Ellison for DNC Chair (which I support, with some small reservations) momentum is slowing down because the “donor class” doesn’t want him and mostly, doesn’t like him.

We have no evidence since the year 2006 that Dems will magically turn out in a midterm when they do not hold the White House. 2006 was certainly a wave, but it was a wave that was created by the Iraq War and the Bush Administration being historically unpopular. It is likely that Trump will be unpopular, but when you have Democratic leaders like (permanent) Minority Leader Schumer in the Senate, and (permanent) Minority Leader Pelosi in the House vowing to make Donald Trump more popular, and vowing to work with him on some things, in stark contrast to how the GOP leadership behaved after an *actual* landslide in 2008, the jury is very much still out on the so-called coming 2018 Democratic wave.

2018 should be focused on the states and localities. Gubernatorial and state legislative campaigns. Party-building begins locally and it begins personally. Think local.

If the GOP maintains most of what they hold or even slightly improve (via winning the MN and PA gubernatorial races, a distinct possibility if nothing changes), not only are they knocking on the door of a filibuster-proof Senate, but they are also knocking on the door of a Constitutional amendment proof majority in the states (3/4ths, 37 states needed to pass and ratify proposed Constitutional amendments).

Not only will there be no wave if things do not change in a hurry for the party, but there are many areas past the above mentioned Senate map looking brutal, where we could lose ground further.

New York Democrats are currently prepping Chelsea Clinton to run for Congress in a long-held but only slight Democratic district in the New York-17th. I predict the GOP goes out and gets an Iraq Veteran who delivers lines like this across the district:

“While Chelsea Clinton was getting groomed to run for Congress and join the family business someday, I was dodging bullets in the Middle East.” – the Eric Greitens of the New York 17th.

I’m sure Chelsea is nice, this is not personal. But I ask our readership to please get an early start in starting the human rights watch campaign to free Chelsea Clinton from what Democratic Party insiders and the Clinton cabal of advisors keep asking her to do. Go into careers that she does not want to do and is not a natural at doing. It’s insulting to her humanity, it’s insulting to the electorate, and I can only hope that she does not run. Enough with the Dukes and Earls, whether political or economic.

The 2020 Presidential Election — here are the early, talked about candidates:

One of the Reagan-baby Gen-X heavy GOP deep benchers (Rubio, Sasse, Cotton, Haley, although probably not Speaker Ryan as he’ll be too politicized) wins the Presidency, replacing Trump, who limits himself to one term citing political success and victories, or because he is impeached by a GOP congress, bringing us briefly, a President Glen Allen Walken…I mean Mike Pence.

Meanwhile, here is what the Democratic Party is countering with as of now, or at least this is what the early chatter is in the Beltway.

Sen. Cory Booker (NJ).

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (NY).

Sen-elect Kamala Harris (CA).

Gov. John Hickenlooper (CO).

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (MN).

First Lady Michelle Obama (Will reside in Washington D.C.).

I wanted to give everyone the proper amount of time away but now it is time to be honest.

Michelle, I have no doubt would be great. But she has stated many times that she has no interest in electoral politics. The Obama family has served their country enough. Leave them alone.

Sen-elect Harris will not run, and while she has a bright future, she is also from California, which has never produced a Democratic President and looks unlikely to do so in this current climate. Lets see what kind of Senator she is going to be first. I have high hopes that at the very least she’d make an excellent AG or VP candidate, then perhaps President after that.

Furthermore, every- single-talked-about candidate was only analyzed in terms of fundraising abilities, not potential message or vision for the future. The amount of people who do not get it in the political, media, and intellectual elite is alarming. For the most part, only the folks and their supporters are getting it. A quick note on the rest: Booker and Gillibrand (as well as Cuomo) may very well run, but they won’t win. If Sen. Klobuchar or Gov. Hickenlooper run, see Tim Pawlenty.

Thanks for sticking with us. Let’s get organized team future, we’re the last, best hope and it’s time to accept that.

If there is a universal lesson to be learned from Tuesday, November 8th, 2016 — it’s that we should avoid painting people with too broad of a brush. We must work to get out of our own (often) self-imposed “bubbles” and pierce other ones, to remind your neighbor and fellow American that you’re still here too.

First off, I apologize. We got it wrong. But then again, so did everyone. While Agreeing Loudly got the numbers at the Presidential level wrong, if you look at our back catalogue of podcasts and articles, a lot of the analysis was there all year, serving as a caution and a warning that hard times and danger was ahead for the Democratic Party. Ultimately, I followed Nate Silver and the previously reliable polling aggregations. I said we’d barely hold out in 2016 and then 2018 and 2020 would be rough, which would then lead to rock bottom. 2016–meet rock bottom.

We do this site because we care about the future. We all get busy at times and have things get in the way but at the end of the day — I am incredibly proud of our first year-plus content. I want to encourage listenership to the back catalogue and readership of previous articles. I think it will help provide context to what was driving the decline of the Democratic Party.

I’d also like to point to a few of my favorite “Agreeing Loudly” contributor inventions:

Satire Is Pointless by Carson Starkey.

This is more true than ever now. I struggle to come up with the words of a great dark comedy that would equal this. Satire and reality truly have merged these past few years and AL.com contributor and MoE co-host Carson Starkey was right on top of that development. Which led us to…

Sadly, not satire.

I’d also like to call attention to the name of the site: Agreeing Loudly.

Intended or not, for me the namesake of this site is a reference to the “bubble.” We’ve all been in them. We’ve all lost sight of reality before because we were so focused on improving things and accomplishing the task at hand, surrounded by like-minded people.

The brilliant and nuanced podcast the “Margin of Error”, an essential listen featuring nearly weekly guests with co-hosts Allan Branstiter and Carson Starkey. The podcast manages to be simultaneously succinct and in-depth. I cannot help but think of the refrain I repeated all year about the ultimate 2016 result. Hillary Clinton will win by the margin of error. However, the funny thing about the margin of error is that by definition, the other candidate can win.

The Greater Recession: Party’s End (pre-written, now being slightly readjusted for the final result) was mentioned during the first and second parts to The Greater Recession article series. Party’s End of course refers to the Democratic Party. So while we missed the final numbers, I cannot say that I am overly surprised by what happened on November 8th.

Even if Hillary Clinton won on Tuesday, the problems of the Democratic Party existed and every contributor here at Agreeing Loudly ultimately believed some version of Tuesday was eventually going to happen, and it would happen no later than 2020. It looks like it has happened in 2016. We now know that the Obama coalition is entirely dependent on Obama (shocker… I know, something named after a person needs that person).

So where do we go from here? Ruminate on some of these themes I plan on discussing in the coming year.

The Political Spectrum doesn’t exist.

“We Are The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For.”

Please Join Us and Please Disagree Respectfully. Reach Out and Ask To Come On The Show. We want to hear from you, learn from you, and do everything in our power to help you all through this and build this site into something that you can take solace and ideas from as we prepare to exit into the long night that is the political wilderness.

Winston Churchill spent time in the wilderness. William F. Buckley created an intellectual movement of conservative principles while in the long political wilderness. It took him twenty five years to see the President that he had dreamed of. Something tells me that if Buckley were still alive, he would be mostly horrified by what just happened even though the movement he created now has more power than at any time since the 1920’s (which of course led to good things right… right?)

President-elect Trump is now mere months away from taking the Oath of Office. He is our President, but that doesn’t mean he is a good man. Because he is not. And if he wants me to change my mind on that he will have to show me something dramatically different.

We must pierce the bubble and learn. We must seek common and mutual understanding and stop speaking past one another if this country is to ever be united again in any meaningful way. I hope for the sake of all of us that President-elect Trump succeeds. I have my doubts. I strongly believe that you have to spend time in the batting cage to get a .300 batting average. Donald Trump has maybe watched some baseball games. Clearly he understands now what people like about it. But it will be very, very hard for him to hit .300 or even .200 or .100. Instead what we are seeing so far is hired guns on steroids, intent on threatening hundreds of years of our traditions and social contract. In these times, here is another thing to bring back: constitutionalist liberals.

Make no mistake the game will get played. And now more than ever, it must be a sell out crowd. Because the whole world is watching and worrying just like us.

Lets go to the ballgame. Lets sing the national anthem still. The team might finish in last place, but we have to show the world that we still care.

In the mean time and in the immediate term, lets take care of one another. We still have strength in numbers.

I ask those that will be vulnerable to be careful, be smart, be brave, and resilient. And I ask those who have privilege to love and support the vulnerable and the hated. It’s not just the bare minimum we can do right now and the right thing to do, but it is the only thing to do.

Call out hatred when you see it and stand up next to the hated. Not because you are trying to persuade the hater, but because we must show solidarity, love, and support for those that are hated.

Justin Norris holds an undergraduate degree in Political Science from Minnesota State University Moorhead and a MA in Political Science from the University of Georgia. He is currently completing his PhD there.

When I was a teenager I enjoyed reading the historical fiction of authors like James Clavell. In one of his stories, Tai-Pan I believe, there was supposedly an old Chinese curse that went like this: May you live in interesting times. I have no idea if such a curse exists, but if it doesn’t it certainly should, because we are certainly cursed to live in interesting times.

Many have asked me to write a postmortem of sorts for the 2016 presidential election. As to oblige, the following is a list (in no particular order) explaining what I believe led to the outcome in the 2016 Presidential election. Many of the items on this list bleed together and intensify the impact of one another.

Word of warning, this is a long list for this kind of format, and I’m not going to put together a tl; dr version. These assessments come from a combination of expertise, the publicly available information released up to this point, and some of the semi-inside info I’ve received from several people who were in the field during the campaign. Since it is still early, some of these assessments may change as new information emerges. That being said, here’s what I think happened.

1.Social desirability bias is alive and well. Many people, especially college educated voters (both men and women), did not want to fess up to pollsters that they supported Trump. Of course, in hindsight this is not surprising, and I had concerns about this problem early on, but there was little good evidence to suggest it was a factor during the primaries (and what evidence that did exist was mixed). Moreover, the classic examples for social desirability bias in surveys occurred when white people would lie about supporting African American candidates for political office. The incredible accuracy of the overall polling environment during the 2008 and 2012 elections led many to believe that social desirability bias was no longer as major a problem as it was in the past. We were lulled into a false sense of security, and the consequences were both great and terrible.

The bad polling data led to bad polling aggregates and bad models. Or as many methodologists like to joke about these kinds of situations: garbage in, garbage out. Faulty data leads to faulty decisions. This led many within both campaigns to make faulty decisions about vote targets, potentially effective messaging, canvassing goals, targeting areas, etc. It also helped fuel a lot of confirmation bias across the board (myself included). Though to be clear on this point, damn near everyone was fooled by this. There are several reports originating from within the Trump campaign that suggest that they expected to get no more than 240 Electoral Votes on election night. They were caught flat footed by this as much as everyone else.

Similarly, most pollsters used faulty assumptions for the population weights they used in their survey results. They assumed that the election would look like 2012. This turned out to be wrong. Some pollsters released multiple findings for their polls using different weights. I think this should become the norm.

2. Sexism is alive and well. I have had people (who I thought were smart, until they said this) tell me that Clinton was nominated solely because she has a vagina. Period. The exit polls are suggestive on this matter. Damn near 80% of males overall voted for Trump. Moreover, the large number of sexual harassment stories in the days since Trump’s victory makes it clear that it may be debatable as to whether sexism was the most important factor for deciding this race, but you cannot deny that it was a factor, and likely an important one.

3. Racism and bigotry are alive and well. The exit polls and on-site interviews are suggestive on this point. People who care deeply about illegal immigration overwhelmingly went for Trump. And they were very vocal about it. We are talking about a winning candidate endorsed by both Neo-Nazis and the KKK. Moreover, many hate groups bussed ‘their’ voters to the polls in several important states. On a personal (albeit anecdotal) level, I know many of us have had to look no further than our own social media environments to see the role bigotry played in this race. I also know many people who have already had to deal with this in the real world. It is unclear at this juncture how important this was for the outcome, but it’s pretty clear that it was part of the equation.

4. White working class/white rural rage is real, and Democrats need to ditch the corporatists that moved the party away from the working class in general when it comes to economics. When it comes to economics, Trump ran as an old-school Democrat in many ways (at least rhetorically). Superficially, much of what Trump said on corporate greed, the system being rigged, etc. is similar enough to what Bernie Sanders said that many voters would not be able to tell the difference. And the Democrats let him get away with it. Instead of showing how full of shit Trump is on these issues the Democrats largely ceded the ground. This had consequences which are now plainly seen.

5. I’m sorry, but Clinton was a terrible candidate. I know I’m going to get heat for saying it, but it’s true. To be fair, it’s not entirely her fault. Her enemies have been very effective in painting her in the worst possible terms for decades, and the aforementioned problems with sexism make the impact of these attacks even worse. However, she ran a terrible campaign (especially considering who she was running against).

Many of us hoped that the Clinton camp learned from 2008, but as of right now that does not appear to be the case. It appears that they still valued loyalty over competence, and suffered from group think to the extreme. For example, I’ve gotten both inside accounts and read media reports stating that the Clinton campaign did not try to mobilize support or persuade voters in rural areas. Nor did they try to target working class whites.

Moreover, there are media accounts suggesting that this decision was made over the loud objections of Bill Clinton (who knows a few things about this subject). Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama made plays for these constituencies. Even if you don’t win them over, you must try to counteract your opponent’s efforts in trying to win the day with these voters. The Hillary Clinton campaign ignored these constituencies almost entirely. The damage on this point is evident.

Similarly, insiders have told me, and media accounts now confirm that the Clinton campaign overly relied on simulations for determining messaging, canvassing maps, GOTV priorities, and other matters. In and of itself heavy use of data analytics isn’t necessarily bad. If you do it right I believe it can pay dividends. However, it’s what happened next that makes me want to scream. After putting their plans into effect for messaging, canvassing, etc. the people on the ground reported that it wasn’t working.

This went on for months in both critical and noncritical states where people on the ground warned the campaign brass that it wasn’t working. Messages were falling flat. They couldn’t build enthusiasm or get voter commitments. Targets were not being met. The brass in Brooklyn told them to stay the course. That is political malpractice, and whoever was in charge of making that decision should never get paid to work in politics ever again. Ever. In general, using data and running simulations to help make strategic decisions is a good thing, but once you’ve tried to implement those plans and the evidence suggests it’s not working then you need to rethink what you are doing. You need to challenge your assumptions, question the data, and listen to the people you have entrusted to put your plans into effect. Ugh. And again, you can’t just focus on minority populations, young voters, and women, and you certainly can’t just focus on the urban and suburban areas. This is a recipe for disaster.

6. I am certain I’m going to get heat for this too, but the evidence is already mounting that it’s true.Third Party support did constitute a spoiler effect for both Clinton and Trump. Exit polls suggest that roughly a third of Johnson voters in critical states, states decided by less than one percent were self-identified Democrats. Moreover, nearly all of Stein voters were self-identified Democrats. If these people had voted for Clinton in places like FL, WI, PA, or MI it could have swung the election. That’s a textbook spoiler effect. Though I of course concede that this, and all the other factors identified in this dissection do not exist in a vacuum. Regardless, that is all I’m going to say on this subject.

7. The media dropped the ball. In the attempt to adhere to the ‘balanced coverage’ approach to covering campaigns many in the media pursued a false dichotomy that led many to believe that the campaigns were comparable in many ways. This is nonsense. Yes, the media covered the ‘Grab them by the pu**y’ video, but they also dedicated a ridiculous amount of coverage to the email story, even though it was a nonstory compared to everything else going on in the campaigns. For example, even now the majority of voters are unaware that there are around 75 pending lawsuits against Trump, many involving allegations of serious crimes. Similarly, the media gave Trump so much free uncontested air time it was insane. Not to mention that issues were generally ignored. Yes, the media always focuses more on the horse race, but not to the exclusion of damn near everything else.

To be fair, television and cable are dying platforms, with fewer viewers by the day. Similarly, much of the traditional print media did a fantastic job, but fewer and fewer people read their content. Instead we get the vacuous nonsense that passes for discourse in social media. And most of what gets circulated in social media comes perilously close to rank propaganda or are downright hoaxes. I had a conversation post-Election Day with a family member and Trump voter where they listed a litany of well-known hoaxes to help justify their vote. To hammer the point home that these stories were false I read them the top Google search results for each story. In each case, the second Google result was the Snopes story explaining that the story was a hoax. I suspect many people have had similar conversations in the wake of this election. It’s has gotten to the point where Silicon Valley elites are starting to ask if Facebook has too much influence over American political discourse, especially given that most of what gets disseminated is patently false.

8. The Clinton campaign is arguing that the Comey letter is to blame for their loss. Given all the other problems I believe this is suspect as the sole cause. However, it undoubtedly played an important role. The media jumped on this story, and though they quickly dialed back the more explosive aspects because they were entirely unfounded thedamage had already been done. And to add insult to injury the second statement from Comey stating that the new investigation was already over and had found nothing was nowhere near as widely circulated.

As for the impact of the FBI putting its finger on the scale, the best evidence at this point suggests that it influenced voter behavior in a number of ways. The exit polls and a lot survey data suggest that the Comey letter had a profound impact on late-deciders, with the majority of them breaking for Trump. This makes the scant coverage of Comey’s retraction all the more damning. Moreover, there is evidence that the Comey letter demoralized a significant number of Democratic leaning voters, and helped bring a lot of wavering Republicans back into the fold. Though I think Harry Reid goes too far in arguing that Comey violated the Hatch Act, his behavior came perilously close, and I believe the Justice dept. should have ordered him to not send the letter.

9. There could be many culprits as to why, but this was a low turnout election, especially compared to the two previous elections. This hurts Democrats for a number of reasons, but I will focus on what I think is the most damning reason that has the farthest reaching consequences for future races. This was the first presidential election in 50 years that was not conducted under the most important provisions of the Voting Rights Act. After testing the waters in the 2014 midterms the Republican Party pushed for measures in many Republican controlled states that depress turnout, and focused these efforts in traditionally Democratic leaning areas or targeted Democratic leaning constituencies. Unless stopped by the courts, Republican controlled states cut polling places in Democratic leaning areas, reduced the number of days for early voting, reduced the number of early voting locations, and passed voter ID laws purposely designed to make it harder for Democratic leaning constituencies to get lawful IDs.

We know that the goal was to target Democratic leaning constituencies because the GOP admitted it through the evidence presented in federal court, and both federal and state rulings were supposed to stop both NC and WI from implementing these laws. Both NC and WI ignored these rulings and did it anyway. In WI this likely threw the election to Trump given that over 300,000 voters were turned away for not having IDs (that the courts said they didn’t need to have), and as of now, Trumps vote margin is around 27,000 votes. Voter suppression (and that is what it was) likely played a critical role in the results for FL, NC, WI, and MI.

I could go into greater detail and deeper in the weeds for every single one of these points, but this is already longer than I wanted to make it, and I have other work to do.
I hope this clarifies things for many of you or at least gives you something to think about. If anyone wants them I can provide links to support every single one of these points.
I have been getting a lot of questions about what I think the Democratic Party should do or what liberals/progressives should do about all of this. I have a lot of thoughts on this matter, but I am unsure if I will put them out into the ether.

Though I will say this, when there is no hope there is no fear. For years now the left has allowed the more conservative factions to govern the Democratic Party because many believed the stakes were too high (protecting existing gains, the Supreme Court, etc.). Well, that’s over now. The right now controls all three branches of government, and they are already making plans to do what many have feared. So now I suggest that the left should fight back. Band together and fight for what you actually believe in, and don’t be afraid to lose. When the conservatives were out in the wilderness for decades they were not afraid to lose, and it helped them immensely. Democrats can’t just be the ‘not crazy’ party anymore. The party needs to actually stand for what its voters believe in. Enough is enough.

Agreeing Loudly contributor Troy Olson predicts Hillary Clinton will make history and be elected the first female President of the United States by a comfortable margin on Tuesday, November 8th and he further predicts that his predictions will be more accurate than Dick Morris, because Dick Morris is professionally and wildly wrong about everything.

Two weeks from today the seemingly endless 2016 Presidential Campaign will wind to a close and the voters (those that have not voted early, which I highly recommend if your state allows for early voting. This will be organized into three parts.

Today will be the Presidential Election itself. One week from today will be the Congressional elections in the Senate and House. And the day before the election will be the Gubernatorial and state legislative elections. I’m doing it this way for two reasons: one, the Presidential election has historically been very static in the weeks leading up to the final vote and especially in this election, everyone has feels very, very strongly about well….something. Two and most important, the President isn’t a dictator. At best, the President has third most control of any politician in this country over daily lives. The individuals that have the most at stake in who becomes President, members of the United States armed forces, vote at alarmingly low rates.

Presidential Election Predictions

The Popular Vote.

Hillary Clinton (D) – 48.0%

Donald Trump (R) – 43.0%

Gary Johnson (L) – 5.0%

Evan McMullin (I) – 2.0%

Jill Stein (G) – 1.5%

Other – 0.5%

What to Watch For:

West Coast polls won’t close for awhile, the popular vote will look closer than it ends up because heavily Democratic states like California, Oregon, and Washington have not reported yet.

The big surprise here would be Evan McMullin finishing ahead of Jill Stein. This is because I expect some Stein supporters to come home to the Democratic Party and because Jill Stein has been incredibly underwhelming all cycle, just like in 2012. While I respect the enthusiasm and some of the principled stances of members of the Green Party and Jill Stein herself, like Gary Johnson, she has been way out of her element all cycle. In her defense, the normally funny John Oliver struck a low blow when he made fun of her for playing in a very-early 90’s Indigo Girls sounding rock band. There are many other reasons to not support Jill Stein for the highest office in the land, there is no need to ridicule someone’s incredibly healthy hobby or past career.

I rounded to the nearest .5% for simplicity sake.

I also think a good slice of the traditional GOP (as in they voted for Romney and McCain) electorate who are dissatisfied with Trump as nominee come home, we’ve already been seeing evidence of this the past few days.

This is the danger of making predictions two weeks out but I will discuss a few with you.

Iowa (GOP) – has been trending GOP the last few cycles, has two GOP Senators, a GOP Governor, and is a state I was personally on the ground for in 2008, a spectacular experience, and 2010, still the biggest landslide defeat I and another member of this podcast has ever been apart of. It was a brutal cycle, but unlike other parts of the nation, the red trend and swing in Iowa is real and could be a harbinger of things to come in the Upper Midwest generally.

North Carolina (DEM) – is this the new Virginia for the Dems? I think so. But it will still be razor thin if the polls state as they are in the final two weeks. I think most of the close MoE states will ultimately break Hillary Clinton’s way because she actually has an organized campaign on the ground, unlike Trump.

Florida (DEM) – another state that the GOP could have easily had this cycle on their column had they not nominated Trump. Expect Marco Rubio to run 5-6 points ahead of Trump here. If this state is called for Hillary before 11 PM, we’ll have a shorter night.

Georgia and Arizona (stay GOP, but someday…) – these are two must-holds for Trump. If Hillary pulls off the upset in Georgia, she has won in a landslide. If she wins in Arizona as the polls show now, she has possibly won more electoral votes than Barack Obama did in 2008. I see both of these states ultimately staying the lightest of red, but they will continue to slowly trend blue in upcoming cycles at the local and statewide levels.

Ohio (stay GOP) – this is the state I feel the least confident about, but I think Trump pulls this one out and benefits from lower youth turnout in college towns, combined with a noncompetitive Senate election in the GOPs favor. Large turnout by key Democratic constituencies kept this in Obama’s column in 2012. If Ohio is won by Hillary it will be on the strength of the ground campaign, where investments are considerably less than they should have been due to Hillary having easy paths to 270 without Ohio and incumbent GOP Senator Rob Portman being up by double digits.

Nevada (DEM) – a state that has always been strong for Hillary Clinton, both in the 2008 and 2016 Democratic Primaries and in 2016 General Election polling. This is also part of a broader blue trend over the past decade in the Southwestern United States that includes New Mexico, Colorado, and perhaps soon, Arizona.

Utah (Independent) – discussed further below. I see McMullin pulling this off with just over 30% of the vote, followed by Trump and Clinton being somewhere between 20 and 30% of the vote.

Turnout.

54%

Clinton – 5 best and 5 worst states.

Best: California, New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Vermont.

Worst: Utah, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Idaho, West Virginia

Trump – 5 best and 5 worst states.

Best: Wyoming, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Kentucky, Kansas

Worst: Utah, California, New York, Vermont, Maryland

Bold Predictions:

Evan McMullin wins the state of Utah and its 6 electoral votes.

Why? Because the significant Mormon population in Utah does not trust or like Trump for a variety of reasons and because he is a favorite son who is on the ballot there, as well as 10 other states (a few of which he will also do relatively well in considering he has received next to no attention by even non-major party standards). Overall, McMullin is on the ballot in 11 states and those states, especially Utah and Idaho will drive his 2% national margin.

Evan McMullin, a career CIA officer and former Peace Corps member and just 40 years old, will then run and win office statewide in Utah once Orrin Hatch retires, which he will do relatively soon because unlike the Democratic Party, the GOP actually builds a bench, cares about its farm system, cultivates talent, and despite its image as being an old white guy who is afraid of change, they have considerably more young leaders than the Democratic Party does.

Voter Turnout, despite this historic election, is lower than in 2012 and is the lowest since 2000 when George W. Bush controversially defeated Al Gore to win the Presidency.

Why? Because despite declarations on the ALC2C podcast and on The Margin of Error podcast – fear and hatred of the other side only drives turnout to a point. To reach historic or large (by American standards) turnout you need a positive, optimistic, and hopeful message and the candidates need to have above-the-water favorability ratings.

Favorability ratings are about likability and are a better assessment of a candidate. Approval ratings are the assessment of how well a President is doing their job.

In the last six decades, the two years where turnout was the highest were in 1960; where both John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon had sky high favorability ratings. In 2008, while much lower than the famous Kennedy-Nixon election, Barack Obama and John McCain had the highest favorability ratings of the modern political age throughout most of the campaign. This was quite an accomplishment considering the era we live in right now – characterized by increasing government gridlock and partisanship, vitriol, and the public losing trust and confidence in American institutions.

Simply put, voting FOR something is always more desirable than voting AGAINST something. Fear and hatred of the other side does and has worked politically in past decades, but only if it is combined with lower turnout, which is ultimately the goal with those campaign tactics.

Winners:

Clinton, for breaking that glass ceiling and making history.

The world, for avoiding a Trump Presidency, an idea that terrifies many around the world to no end. Gambling on a personality as volatile as Trump with the largest nuclear arsenal at his fingertips would strike fear into the hearts of a lot of people. They’re not alone.

2020 GOP nominee, who gets to face an incumbent that enters office with -9 to -10 favorability ratings and the general historical trend of an incumbent party not securing a fourth consecutive administration unless it is the Great Depression and WWII. In other words Hillary Clinton will have to do a very, very good job as President and have a lot of voters actually think that to have a fighting chance at re-election. Of course the caveat to this is if the GOP still… cannot get its act together for a national election, which brings me to…

Losers:

Trump, not for losing the election, although that I’m sure will bother him considerably. No, he is a loser even if he wins by some miracle because he has dragged American politics and the honor of the highest office in the land to perhaps its lowest point in our history. Barack Obama, no matter what you thought of his policies, is a basically good and decent man. While I disagree with Mitt Romney, John McCain, and George W. Bush on policy, I always believed they woke up each day wanting to do what is best for their country. Trump has ran this campaign for the glorification of his own ego, has further divided an already divided country, and through his hateful and spiteful rhetoric, has brought out the worst sides of some of us.

His supporters, who will be cast aside and derided by most of the GOP elite after this loss. Some have reached Donald Trump’s levels of despicable behavior throughout this campaign cycle, many have lost faith in the two-party system and the economic system as well, and no matter why they are voting for Trump, they all still deserve a country and political leadership who serves the public trust and common interest, rather than special interests. As do all Hillary Clinton, Evan McMullin, Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, Pirate Party, etc. supporters.

2018 Democratic candidates for office, who will have their work cut out for them at the start and suffer from a third straight midterm backlash to a Democratic administration.

Two weeks to go. Congressional predictions to come next week. Gubernatorial and state predictions to come the day before election day.

…rather, it’s more a statement of our slowness in the realm of social and culture life and justice in comparison to the rest of the world. We may have been pioneering and cutting edge in the realm of human liberty and self-governance in 1776, but we’ve been surpassed since. If you want to find things we’re #1 at, look to the economic and innovation realms.

It’s true that Hillary Clinton will be the first nominee of a major party for President of the United States. Yes, this is historic. However, it’s not nearly as historic as some liberals would lead you to believe.

The real progress is that now by popular acclamation, women can be democratically elected as the preferred choice of a majority of voters as the Presidential nominee for a major political party in this country. But it should have happened years ago.

Not only were women qualified to be President before Hillary Clinton, but they proved they were.

For all of Bernie Sanders’s rhetoric about the ills of income inequality and class warfare, in Los Angeles his message was most popular in gentrifying precincts. Dissecting the spacial aspects of why his presidential campaign failed offers important lessons as the movement he inspired looks to the future.

by Allan Branstiter

The Los Angeles Times published a fascinating and telling interactive map displaying how each of LA’s precincts voted during the Democratic Primary on June 7th. My first impression of the map was that of shock—Hillary Clinton absolutely dominated Bernie Sanders throughout the Los Angeles County. The map basically depicts a sea of blue swamping little boroughs of pinko insurgency.

Aside from the degree of Clinton’s victory in Los Angeles, a close look of the precinct results offers progressives a few important lessons as they plan for the future.

Progressives Still Need to Engage Racial Injustice

If you want to make a Sanders supporter bristle, just talk about the fact that the core of his support tends to be comfortable, highly educated, and white. While Sanders made several important (albeit uncomfortable) overtures towards racial injustice and won the support of high-profile African-American intellectuals and activists like Killer Mike and Ta-Nehisi Coates, black and brown folks still voted largely for Clinton. This holds true in LA, where Clinton did very well South Central cities like Compton, Carson, Inglewood, and West Adams.

White Sanders supporters have been struggling for months to understand why their message of economic and social justice is not resonating in non-white communities. While I have a few theories, I certainly don’t claim to have the answers to this problem; however, I am certain that Bernie and the vast majority of his supporters failed to engage racial problems in a way that convince minorities that they saw their issues (poverty, discrimination, segregation, crime, mass incarceration) as more than abstract political issues. White liberals are adept at talking about racial justice, but they’re not very good at engaging racial injustice.

This map can help us explore this issue from the perspective of racial spaces, and how the old adage “Pay attention to what white folks do, not what they say” might help nurture a truly biracial progressive movement in the future.

Sanders Won the Gentrification Vote

The second thing about this map was the fact that Sander’s core of support roughly mapped out the gentrified/gentrifying areas of Los Angeles. This is important to understand because—despite what well-meaning realtors, developers, independent book shop owners, and young urban professional sincerely believes—gentrification is economic and racial violence.

Sadly, where we see concentrations of Sanders supporters on this map, we also see areas of intensifying economic and geographic displacement on the ground. For example, check out the South Beach area:

Lakewood and Long Beach (located southern of Signal Hill on the map) serve as somewhat affordable bedroom communities for white middle class entertainment, tech, and corporate professionals working north in Downtown and West LA. With this population comes good public services and commercial development. On June 7th, these communities were either evenly contested, with the trendier parts of town going for Sanders.

To the north and east are the communities of Carson and Compton, where precincts went solidly for Clinton. The fact that they are also largely African-American, poor, and neglected is a result of decades of urban redlining, economic predation, and systematic racism. In the past Long Beach and Lakewood worked endlessly to keep surrounding blacks out of their suburbs, but today the area is losing African-American residents due to poor economic opportunities, rising costs, crime, and persistent neglect. In their place are thousands of house flippers, land developers, and white middle class “settlers.”

The browns and blacks who remain face an increasingly precarious housing market, low paying service jobs, and heavy policing. Sure, they have a Trader Joe’s now, but their overall quality of life is stagnating. Considering these facts, it should come as no surprise that poor non-whites did not embrace the enthusiasm for Sanders displayed by their well-meaning but ultimately aloof white neighbors.

The South Beach phenomenon can be seen elsewhere in Los Angeles. For example, Sanders had a lot of support along the I-10 corridor in West LA, where a growing tech sector in “Silcon Beach” (Venice Beach) and the extension of the Metro Expo Line from Downtown to Santa Monica have fueled the displacement of poor Hispanics and blacks in the area:

Then there’s ground-zero of LA gentrification—Silver Lake, Echo Park, Highland Park, and Eagle Rock are all hotly developing boroughs with large white populations that voted for Sanders. In fact, one of the most notorious instances of racial displacement occurred in Elysian Park when Chavez Ravine (a Hispanic community) was forcefully emptied and bulldozed to make way for Dodger Stadium:

Long story short, if we’re going to talk about why Sanders did poorly among racial minorities, we need to discuss the failings of white liberalism. We should first begin by dispelling the ideal that all forms of racism—be it segregation, discrimination, neglect, or gentrification—are implicitly motivated by racial malevolence. We need to acknowledge the fact that good “woke” people who espouse even the most inclusive notions of racial justice can also unthinkingly sustain a system of racial inequality. Doing so might alleviate the burden of whiteness felt by white Sanders supporters, and hasten the arrival of a more inclusive and productive progressive movement.

Parting Shot—Clinton Won the Rich and Older People Vote

As a true blue leftist with significant disdain for the outsized influence of wealthy people in the Democratic politics, I should also point out that Clinton won overwhelmingly in the enclaves of ca$h money in LA. Brentwood. Beverly Hills. Pacific Palisades. Westwood. Pasadena. All went for Clinton. Clinton also did well among older Democrats in the ‘burbs: Covina, Beverlywood, Studio City, Encino and the Valley more generally. On the other hand, Sanders did well in Hollywood, where he gummed up traffic and wooed the starry-eyed youths living along Sunset Strip.

LIMA, OH—In an attempt to win back the support of the white working-class voting block, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton has started to appear at rallies wearing a women’s Realtree hoodie and Lucky-brand jeans.

Throughout the 1990s and during Clinton’s 2008 primary campaign, so-called “Reagan Democrats” played a major role in the political dynasty’s electoral successes. Since the election of Barack Obama to the White House, however, this voting block has largely abandoned the Clinton’s brand of centrist Democracy and flocked to emotionally and racially appealing figures in the Republican Party. Eager to win back their support, former-Secretary Clinton has, according to a spokesperson, “started to let her guard down and let Real America see the real Hillary.”

Once again playing up her middle-class upbringing in Illinois and her life in Arkansas, Clinton surrogates say that the coarse language and hunting apparel that now play a major part in the new public image of the former New York Senator is a more authentic reflection of the woman they know behind the scenes.

“I was with her on that fateful day in 2001—we were both in a state of sheer disbelief,” close friend Jeff Foxworthy stated. “No one cried harder that Hillary Rodham Clinton when Dale Earnhardt died at the Daytona 500 that year. Now maybe people will get to see that side of her.”

While much of the substance of Clinton’s speeches at rallies have not changed, her presentation certainly has—some have even called it “Palinesque without the Tequila Rose.”

Clinton has also been more open about her private life, offering the public insights through members of her press team. While she has not yet held a press conference, her staff have made it clear that her brand preferences include Budweiser beers, Ford trucks, the Dallas Cowboys, Justin boots, and Remington rifles. Clinton has also quoted several lines from her favorite television show, “Big Bang Theory.”